


touched by frost

by mellarosa



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Boromir Lives AU, Gen, aragorn dies au, author tries to be deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 00:58:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18297188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellarosa/pseuds/mellarosa
Summary: boromir has spent his whole life as the golden child - he who could do no wrong, he who was loved and wanted. brave and bold, the savior of his people.he knows now how faramir feels. how it is to be looked upon and found so very wanting. to be wished you were another.





	touched by frost

“i would have followed you, my brother, my captain, my king,” boromir whispers, aragorn closes his eyes, the line of isildur ends.

three arrows to kill a king. the orc that does the deed lies dead and forgotten, unnamed. it is not around him that three friends gather, shock leaking to horror, realization creeping through the fog of their minds.

“it should have been me, shouldn’t it have?” boromir clutches his sword, his horn, but his hands long for a saving grace. they long for a golden ring. 

gimli hastens to reassure him, but legolas’ silence is telling. boromir sheathes his sword and clenches his fist into the thick leather of his glove.

a hundred leagues away arwen’s heart shatters. elrond watches, helpless and afraid, as his daughter falls to the same fate as once his brother did.

still, arwen refuses to leave. she is shattered, but shattered means there are pieces left yet. she shall not die of grief in the way of elves - arwen has already chosen a mortal life. her love is dead, but aragorn died for something, and arwen will not let that go to waste.

boromir is confused as legolas and gimli both turn to him as a leader. they’re both older than him, and it was never boromir, son of denethor ii, steward of gondor, who commanded the fellowship. and still, they look to him.

some things are the same. a man, an elf, and a dwarf run ceaselessly across plains to save two hobbits. 

but it is not a horn that washes ashore, cleaved in two. it is a pendant, small but beautiful, glowing with an inner light, even though ugly cracks scar its lovely surface.

faramir is a good man, regardless of his brother’s life and actions. sam and frodo are sent on their way.

in rohan, boromir recognizes something in eowyn’s eyes, some kinship. he’s seen it in his own shaking, empty hands. loved by their people, and so, so ready to die for them. yet always it is others, more worthy of life, who seem to fall. 

eowyn never falls for boromir the same way she would have fallen for aragorn, in another life. she and boromir are kindred spirits, rather. a brother, even now. (a brother. eowyn is cold and briefly, briefly, boromir remembers his brother’s warmth, and wonders.)

boromir rides and fights, he struggles to lead in ways aragorn found it so easy. what cruel irony is this? that aragorn so naturally led, yet hated to, and died on those shores. and boromir, boromir lived, boromir who fell to the ring when aragorn so easily pushed the cursed thing away, boromir who knows now that he could not equal so great a man. gandalf the white, born again - and oh, a marvel, and a blessing, though briefly boromir is struck by a ghost of a 'what if' - sees the irony too. boromir cannot forget the haunted gleam in in gandalf’s wise sharp eyes when they told him it was aragorn elessar, estel, who fell by the riverbanks, pierced with arrows as he defended the lives of his friends.

theoden regards boromir with a cold eye but a polite welcome. 

boromir has spent his whole life as the golden child - he who could do no wrong, he who was loved and wanted. brave and bold, the savior of his people. 

he knows now how faramir feels, how it is to be looked upon and found so very wanting. to be wished you were another.

when they are camped outside that cursed mountain, it is arwen - ashen faced, lines beginning to trace across her perfect skin, the bright porcelain and harsh charcoal of her profile softening and wrinkling and fading - it is a mortal and grieving arwen who hands boromir anduril. once, the shards of narsil cut boromir’s fingers as he fled from his unwilling king. now, the evenstar’s light seeps inexorably from her once-perfect features, and the sword is near weightless but it feels leaden in boromir’s shaking hands. arwen’s brothers, a pair of matched blades, stand behind her. boromir cannot read their grief on their faces, but he can read arwen’s.

boromir refuses it at first. he is no king - there truly is no king for gondor, now. the oathbreakers will not listen to a steward’s son. but arwen pushes it at him.

“take it,” she says, and she is no immortal elf, for no elf could speak with such sorrow and anger in their voice and still live on these shores. “you lived,” she says, “you rose, and he did not. but arda still must be saved, and there is no other to do it.” her hands shake, clench.

inside the mountain, the oathbreaker king laughs. boromir’s blood is not gold. his roots are touched by frost. he is followed by his companions, those who love him - it is so easy to love boromir - but still, there is doubt in their eyes, if not in their stances, if not in their raised weapons. 

yet the swords still clash.

what is a king?

boromir has never wanted anything but to save his people. his blood is not gold, his roots are not as deep. but they do not wither.

they ride into battle with a host of the dead at their heels and boromir feels, just a little, like he is one of them. (no, not that he is one of them - but that maybe he ought to be.) “you carry a heavy burden, frodo. do not carry the weight of the dead.” in this, boromir will always be a hypocrite. 

the white city is both a balm and a dagger. great and beautiful it is, his childhood and his one true love, but it is fading and cracking. it makes him remember arwen. once, she was starlight itself. now she is shaky with pain, her once clear voice turned thick. still, still, there is greatness in her bones, and a fierceness that defies death and darkness up to the very ruins of her crumbling foundations. mortal, but grand.

boromir cannot decide if that is hope or damnation. he cannot figure out the difference between the two.

theoden king was poisoned by a great wizard. denethor steward is poisoned by his own pride. boromir may have lived, but denethor still cannot see faramir with clear eyes. faramir is set to burn, denethor dies, and a hobbit and a wizard save the second son of the steward.

in the end, it is boromir who leads gondor, not his father. 

aragorn was strong. boromir fell. but boromir rose and aragorn did not and the whispers still pile on in the corners of his mind. “gondor is falling, crumbling, dying,” they murmur, “it should have been aragorn. you are not wanted. you are not needed.” these, boromir cannot part from his own thoughts. 

but the ones that hiss, “the ring can save you. the ring can save gondor. you cannot win against sauron - but you can make peace, and you can save them all.” those whispers, boromir fights back, with faramir’s warmth, legolas’ bright laugh, gimli’s low chuckle, the bell-like chorus of merry and pippin. he fights them with sam's life, and eowyn’s steel, and arwen’s choice, theoden’s glory, gandalf’s light. with a gaunt but brave face that bore a terrible burden. those whispers he fights back with a memory that was sent away crownless down a river.

boromir stands in his white city, his hands clenching, and he thinks of aragorn. he thinks of frodo. he thinks of guilt and of cold whispers and a little gold ring, such a tiny thing to place the fate of the world upon. he thinks of the man who should have lived. but above all, boromir thinks of his people, proud and glorious and brave to their last breaths. he leads a tattered but courageous army to the black gate, to buy a hobbit and his gardener a sparse few minutes, resting on a damning hope.

it works.

boromir was not meant to live, but he did, and so he does. 

he is not aragorn. boromir of the line of stewards was not born to be a king, and the aberration of his existence will be carved into his blood all the days of his life. but when all is said and done, a crown is placed on his head. aragorn may be dead but estel cannot be. gandalf has plans, and the free peoples of middle earth must be united.

heavy is the head that wears the crown, and heavier still one that carries so much guilt along with it. 

but arwen does not leave gondor, though her eyes are darkened and her footsteps weary. in her, boromir finds an unexpected friend.

faramir will fear fire all his life, but oh, he is still yet so warm, and boromir wonders if his brother should have been king instead. for surely there is no man, dwarf, elf, or hobbit as great as his little brother. 

boromir finds too a friend in eowyn once more - their humor is fit, these days, more for death's door than a white city, but their love for their peoples is stronger than anything else. 

eomer is a ally. gandalf is a constant. legolas and gimli, his steadfast friends and companions, are his right and left hands. 

ah, and the hobbits - in a different world, boromir gave his life for them. his love now is no less. gandalf tells boromir that hobbits are supposedly some offshoot of men, but boromir doubts that. men cannot compare to the bravery and the goodness of hobbits. merry and pippin come often to the white city, and boromir finds in them endless reservoirs of joy and strength. 

one day, they mention they stopped by the ents on their way to minas tirith, and boromir sends an envoy to the forest outside the ruins of isengard. 

dwarves come to fix the gates, and elves come to bring back the growing things. they linger to see the glory of gondor. it has rung through the city’s bones all her life, and it has rung through boromir’s blood all of his.

boromir is not aragorn. he never will be. the crownless is king, but there is no ‘again’ - isildur’s line came to nothing. this is not how the story was supposed to go. there is grief in arwen’s shoulders and a child that shall never be born. there is doubt, and clenched hands, and damaged roots far below the earth. 

but what is a king? boromir has never wanted anything less than the good of his people.

**Author's Note:**

> my good good boy. originally posted on [my tumblr](https://dishesoap.tumblr.com/post/180818229703/au-where-boromir-lives-and-aragorn-dies-by-the)


End file.
